Kyle Okposo left the Gopher hockey team to sign with the New York Islanders in teh middle of his sophomore year. All photos courtesy of Gopher athletics.

Last January 4 at Mariucci Arena, during a game against Wayne State University, Gopher fans rose to their feet and applauded senior goaltender Brent Solei (B.A. '08). Playing in a game for the first time during his four-year college career, Solei—who was voted the team’s most dedicated player the last two years—was on his way to backstopping the Gophers to a 5–1 win. “I think people were sending a message in that round of applause,” says Doug Woog, Gopher coach from 1985 to 1999 and current TV analyst. “They were saying, ‘We like these guys who stick through four years.’ ”

Those guys have become an increasingly uncommon sight in college hockey. College coaches used to bank on having a star player for four years. These days, they’re lucky to have them for three, if that. Since the 2005–06 season, the Gophers have lost 11 players to the pros before they played a full four years. Sixteen players from the Western College Hockey Association (WCHA) with college eligibility remaining signed pro contracts before the 2007–08 season; 17 did so the year before. As of mid-July 2008, 11 WCHA players with college eligibility remaining for the 2008–09 season had turned pro. Three of them, the most from any single school, were Gophers.

The trend of players leaving college early to turn pro, coupled with the battle to recruit prospects at ever-younger ages, has taken a toll on the men’s hockey Gophers, making the two national championships in 2002 and 2003 seem like a quaint piece of history. The changing landscape of college hockey caught up with the Gophers last year, its worst in recent memory. Before the season started, the team lost sophomore standouts Erik Johnson and Jim O’Brien, along with senior Alex Goligoski, to the pros. Then, in midseason, sophomore offensive leader Kyle Okposo left to join the New York Islanders’ organization. His exit no doubt fueled the fans’ ovation for Solei less than three weeks later.

The talent drain into the pros has continued as the Gophers prepare for the 2008–09 season. During the summer, last year’s leading scorer, Blake Wheeler, and veteran goaltender Jeff Frazee, both juniors, and the team’s most physical defenseman, freshman Stu Bickel, all decided to turn pro rather than play out their college eligibility.

Coach Don Lucia doesn’t think the Gophers would have won the two national titles it did in the early 2000s without its senior leaders. “We never would have won a national championship if we hadn’t had [senior captains] Johnny

Cade Fairchild

Pohl (B.S. ’02) and Jordan Leopold (B.S. ’07),” Lucia says. With NHL teams now signing as many players as they can as early as possible, “the reality is that if that cycle of players had come through today, they wouldn’t have been here for their senior year—they would’ve gone early.”

National championship teams in the past five years have averaged 12 upperclassmen. The Gophers had 11 in 2002, including seven seniors. Looking to this season, the Gophers have only two seniors—R.I. Anderson and Justin Bostrom—among their nine upperclassmen, seven sophomores, and a whopping 12 freshmen.

Lucia finds early departures worrisome for their impact in the classroom as well as on the ice. “If we can get kids through their junior year, then they are more likely to come back and finish their degree. I obviously don’t begrudge any player for leaving to play at the NHL level, but I’d rather see these guys stay longer and finish their schooling rather than just play in the minors. To me, graduation is everything,” Lucia says.

Teams in the NHL began signing players after their third year of college hockey because once a player enters his senior year, he’s more likely to risk spurning an offer from the team that has drafted him and more willing to test his value on the market as a free agent. 

But just when coaches had gotten used to their stars leaving after three years, the players started skipping school sooner. Phil Kessel, Erik Johnson, Jim O’Brien, and Stu Bickel left after playing only one season for the Gophers. “When the very good ones like Danny Irmen or Ryan Potulny come to their senior year, they’re going to be gone,” observes Glen Sonmor, Gopher coach from 1966 to 1971 and current radio analyst. “College coaches expect to lose their superior players after their junior year, but they don’t like the idea of losing guys after one or two years.”

Blame July 22, 2005, for the stampede to the pros. That’s the date the NHL board of governors and NHL Players Association ratified the league’s new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which lowered the signing bonuses and maximum salaries for entry-level players. With signing bonuses a quarter of the $1 million they were previously, teams became more willing to take chances on younger players. “It has become so inexpensive for teams to sign players that they’re signing as many as they can,” Lucia explains.

The salary limits are removed on a player’s second contract, inducing players to sign younger so they can get to the bigger money sooner.

Drew Fisher

The new CBA also lowered the age at which players could become free agents, from 31 to 27, so teams are motivated to get players into their organization sooner to have more time to evaluate them.

Unlike football and basketball, where college students give up their college eligibility when they declare for the pro draft, the NHL drafts prospects beginning at age 18 and the players retain their college eligibility until they sign pro contracts. Most of Lucia’s players arrive at Minnesota already assigned to a pro team; the Gophers have 17 NHL draftees on their 2008–09 roster, including first-round picks David Fischer and Patrick White and second-round selections Ryan Stoa, Mike Hoeffel, Nico Sacchetti, and Aaron Ness. 

Often, the players drafted in the first two rounds are the most likely to leave early, but the departure of Bickel—who wasn’t drafted but signed a contract to play for the Anaheim Ducks’ minor league affiliate—demonstrated that no player is guaranteed to stay. “When we were recruiting Stu, we thought he’d be a four-year guy and a captain for us,” Lucia says. “He had a great year for us; he exceeded all our expectations. We’re going to miss him.”

Okposo stunned the Gophers last year when he quit the team midseason to join the New York Islanders’ organization. But his departure also proved to be a catalyst for improvement. That, combined with the return of Mike Carman in January, who had been academically ineligible the first semester, and the strong play of goalie Alex Kangas, sparked a solid second half of the season. “When someone leaves in midseason, it obviously hurts our team,” Bostrom says. “We lost a leader. Initially, it was disappointing, but after awhile we came to accept that he wasn’t there and things came easier for us.”

Not knowing who’s going to stay and who’s going to go makes it tough for a coach to strike the right chemistry, an all-important intangible on winning teams. Woog rates chemistry above talent. “In order to withstand the down spots in a season, you’ve got to have chemistry,” Woog says. “Pretty isn’t always the winner.”

To convince players to stay, a coach must be able to sell them on the idea that it’s in their best interest to graduate and that they will develop in college hockey better than in Canadian major juniors or the minor leagues. “It’s tough to keep reloading, but schools that are planning ahead, using college hockey as a recruiting tool—telling players, ‘We’ll get you to the next level,’—the schools that embrace that will succeed,”

Alex Kangas

says Ben Hankinson (B.S. ’97) former Gopher player from 1987 to 1991 and current NHL player agent.

Both Woog and Sonmor suggest that another way to keep players on the college roster longer is to recruit smaller players, less desirable in the NHL’s eyes. “If you can get some players who are really good but not as big and strong, guys like Ness and Schroeder, then you’re going to have them for a couple of years until they get bigger and stronger,” Sonmor says.

The other major shift in the current college hockey landscape has been the earlier recruitment of prospects. A decade ago, college coaches could still find a standout in the high school hockey tournament; today, they’re competing for the hearts and minds of 15-year-olds. As a ninth- or tenth-grader, a hockey player is still unproven and his development uncertain, but the competition for recruits has college coaches scouting and wooing them at tender ages and gambling on the outcome. The players are so young that a coach won’t know for three or more years if his recruiting efforts will pan out.

“They’re putting the hammer down on kids 15 years old, but if they don’t, they lose,” Woog says. The young players are more savvy than they used to be, too. They—and their parents—know what they want, which is often a commitment to a full scholarship, a first- or second-line spot, and a role on the special teams. Many of them have “family advisers”—code for agents—though NCAA rules ban amateurs from having financial relationships with agents. 

The shifting landscape requires college programs to adapt in order to remain competitive in the national title chase. Coaches must be able to spot potential sooner, sing more sweetly to the ever-younger recruits, and be willing to gamble. How well the Gophers have adapted to the evolution of college hockey will be measured by their ability to put last year’s collapse behind them and once again contend for a national title.

There is one Gopher that fans don’t have to worry about leaving early: junior forward Tony Lucia, the coach’s son. He was picked by the San Jose Sharks in the sixth round of the 2005 draft, but his father promises that Tony, who wears number 12, will graduate. “I only have control over one player,” Lucia says. “Number 12 is going to stay four years. I can guarantee that.” 

John Rosengren is a Minneapolis writer and the author of Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid:  The Year that Changed Baseball Forever.